Editing Claude Lorrain (section)

==Style and subjects==
[[File:Claude Lorrain - An Artist Studying from Nature - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''An Artist Studying from Nature'', 1639 ([[Cincinnati Art Museum]])]]

===Influences===
Claude's choice of both style and subject matter grew out of a tradition of landscape painting in Italy, mostly Rome, led by northern artists trained in the style of [[Northern Mannerism]]. [[Matthijs Bril]] had arrived in Rome from [[Antwerp]] around 1575, and was soon joined by his brother [[Paul Bril|Paul]]. Both specialized in landscapes, initially as backgrounds in large [[fresco]]s, a route apparently also taken by Lorrain some decades later. Matthijs died at 33 but Paul remained active in Rome until after Claude's arrival there, although any meeting between them has not been recorded. [[Hans Rottenhammer]] and [[Adam Elsheimer]] were other northern landscapists associated with Bril, who had left Rome long before.

These artists introduced the genre of small [[cabinet picture]]s, often on copper, where the figures were dominated by their landscape surroundings, which were very often dense woodland placed not far behind figures in the foreground.  Paul Bril had begun to paint larger pictures where the size and balance between the elements, and the type of landscape used, is closer to Claude's work in the future, with an extensive open view behind much of the width of the picture.

Along with other seventeenth-century artists working in Rome, Claude was also influenced by the new interest in the genre of landscape that emerged in the mid-to-late sixteenth century within the Veneto; starting with the Venetian born painter [[Domenico Campagnola]] and the Dutch artist resident in both [[Padua]] and Venice, [[Lambert Sustris]]. Interest in landscape first emerged in Rome in the work of their [[Brescia]]n pupil [[Girolamo Muziano]], who earned the nickname in the city of Il giovane dei paesi (the young man of the landscapes).<ref>Patrizia Tosini, Girolamo Muziano: dalla Maniera alla Natura, 1532–1592 (Ugo Bozzi Editore: 2008), pp. 17–77.</ref>  Following the integration of this tradition with other Northern sources, Bolognese artists such as [[Domenichino]], who was in Rome from 1602, painted a number of "Landscape with..." subjects, drawn from mythology, religion and literature, as well as genre scenes.  These usually have an open vista in one part of the composition, as well as a steep hill in another. Even when the action between the few small figures is violent, the landscape gives an impression of serenity.  The compositions are careful and balanced, and look forward to Claude's.  The ''[[Landscape with the Flight into Egypt (Carracci)|Landscape with the Flight into Egypt]]'' by [[Annibale Carracci]] (c.&nbsp;1604) is one of the best Italian landscapes of the start of the century,<ref>Wine (2001), 33, 63; Wine (1994), 22–24</ref> but perhaps more a forerunner of [[Nicholas Poussin]] than Claude.

In his method, Lorrain would often use a grid of median and diagonal lines to place elements in the landscape in order to create a dynamic and harmonious composition in which landscape and architecture are balanced against empty space.<ref>Sanmiguel, David. (2003)''Art of drawing''. Sterling, 114-115. Print.</ref>

===Early works===
[[File:'Landscape with a Piping Shepherd' by Claude Lorrain, c.&nbsp;1629-32, Norton Simon Museum.JPG|thumb|''Landscape with a Piping Shepherd'', c.&nbsp;1629–1632]]

Claude's earliest paintings draw from both these groups, being mostly rather smaller than later. [[Agostino Tassi]] may have been a pupil of Paul Bril, and his influence is especially evident in Claude's earliest works, at a larger size, while some small works of about 1631 recall Elsheimer.<ref name="auto2"/> Initially Claude often includes more figures than was typical of his predecessors, despite his figure drawing being generally recognised as "notoriously feeble", as [[Roger Fry]] put it.<ref>Fry, 155</ref>

More often than later, the figures were mere genre [[staffage]]: shepherds, travellers, and sailors, as appropriate for the scene. In the early 1630s the first religious and mythological subjects appear, with a [[Flight into Egypt]] probably of 1631,<ref>Kitson, 13, [[Duke of Rutland]]</ref> and a [[Judgement of Paris]],<ref>Kitson, 14–15</ref> both very common subjects in the "Landscape with.." genre.  The pair to the latter is a very early harbour scene, already with tall classical buildings, a type of composition Claude was to use for the rest of his career.<ref>Kitson, 15; Sonnabend & Whiteley, Nos. 1 and 2; both [[Duke of Buccleuch]]</ref>